


honk honk goose

by sarahcakes613



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Animal Transformation, Banter, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Sleepy Cuddles, alternate universe - soulmate goose of enforcement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26564521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahcakes613/pseuds/sarahcakes613
Summary: When Rafael Barba woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a Soulmate Goose of Enforcement.or, Rafael has to herd someone to their soulmate before he can change back to himself. Sonny's just along for the ride.
Relationships: Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr.
Comments: 16
Kudos: 45





	honk honk goose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rellkelltn87](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rellkelltn87/gifts).



> To my very favourite potato: Shanah tovah umetuka, tzom kal, chag sukkot sameach, and I hope you enjoy this story about הקואלה שהפכה לאווז.
> 
> Also this marks my 100th story on AO3. What better way to celebrate a milestone than with something completely absurd?!

Being a Soulmate Goose of Enforcement is a bit like jury selection. No one wants their number to come up, especially without warning. Especially when, just like a trial, you have no idea how long you’ll be away from your daily life. It can happen to anyone, at any time. You go to bed as yourself and you wake up transformed, stuck in a state of transmogrification until you have fulfilled your civic duty.

The first thing Rafael thinks the morning he wakes up a goose is, _I don't have time for this._ He has a meeting with D’Angelo to discuss a plea deal, and then another one with Rita to discuss how much they both dislike D’Angelo, and he's supposed to pick up his dry-cleaning on his way home from work. He flaps a wing in disgust. He's been awake in this form for all of five minutes and he already misses his fingers. He can’t carry a garment bag with wings.

He taps his beak against his phone repeatedly until he is able to unlock it and call the first number on his speed dial. Which is his own office, and that probably says something about his life-work balance that he isn't interested in contemplating just now. Or ever.

"ADA Barba's office." A brisk voice answers, and Barba has never been so happy to hear Carmen's no-nonsense tone.

"Honk!" He says. "Honk _honk_ honk, honk?"

There's a pause, and then, "Mr. Barba?" Carmen asks.

"Honk." Barba replies helplessly. His feathers droop and he sinks down onto his feet.

There is another pause. "I'll reschedule your meetings. Family emergency, couldn't be helped. And I'll call the dry-cleaner and ask them to courier your suits to the office."

Bless Carmen and her no-nonsense tone. He hoots in appreciation.

"Good luck, Mr. Barba."

He honks again, tapping at the phone to try ending the call. He manages, but the phone slides under his beak and he looks with horror as another call connects before he can stop it. 

“Carisi here.”

Barba doesn’t say anything.

“Barba? Everything okay?” Carisi sounds out of breath, like he’s jogging. Rafael didn’t know Carisi jogged. He jogs, sometimes. He probably can’t jog on webbed feet.

A mournful hoot slips out of his beak before he can stop it, and he hears the detective suck in a breath.

“No shit?” He asks. Rafael hoots again.

“Alright, tell you what – yeah, hey, can I get two large black coffees, thanks – listen, I’m just over at the Morningside Park, can you get out of your apartment?”

Rafael looks around and spots a window he’s taken to leaving open for the cross-breeze. He honks affirmatively.

“Alright, great. Meet me by the playground at the north end.”

Rafael honks again and taps the phone, this time successfully ending the call without beginning another. He has no way of bringing his phone with him, so he hopes he’s able to find Carisi without too much trouble.

He hops up onto a table and from there he sticks his wings out of the window and wiggles until the window frame shifts and he is able to push his body out. He’s grateful for being on the 7th floor, he is high enough that no one is looking up to witness his ungainly flopping as he tests out his new flight abilities.

He manages to find a rhythm to the beating of his wings and then catches a tailwind that lets him glide through the air towards the park. He’s there in only a few minutes, and he circles the park until he spots the lanky figure of his colleague sitting on the edge of a fountain.

That’s when Barba realizes he’s got no idea how to land. He pedals his feet in the air in an attempt to slow his descent, but he’s coming in fast. He lets out an extended honk in warning and Sonny looks up just in time to see Barba topple into the fountain and land upside down with his tailfeathers sticking out.

For a brief moment he wonders if it’s possible for a bird to drown itself, but he’s unable to test the theory as a large white hand reaches in and hauls him upright. He sputters indignantly, spitting water at Carisi and hissing at him. Carisi backs up, hands out in front of him placatingly.

“Sorry, sorry, hey. Um. Wow. I’ve never been this close to a metamorph before. Oh, I brought you coffee.” He gestures towards a large cup still sitting on the edge of the fountain.

Barba attacks it, biting at the lid until it falls off and dipping his entire beak into the still-warm liquid. He fills his beak and tilts his head back, letting the coffee slide down his throat. He hoots happily and taps his feet, doing a little dance of excitement at the gift Carisi has brought him.

He doesn’t see Carisi open the camera on his phone and point it discreetly in his direction.

When he finishes his drink, he carefully picks the cup up in his beak and waddles over to the nearest garbage bin. As he’s dropping the cup in, he spots some pizza crusts and feels his stomach grumble. If he balances on the edge of the bin, he should be able to reach down and nab one but before he can, that bedamned hand is back, pulling him off the bin and onto the ground.

He hisses at Carisi again, waving his wings at the bin. Carisi sighs.

“Yeah, I saw. Trust me, I’d rather have angry goose you now than angry human you later when you realize I let you eat dumpster pizza.”

Rafael looks beseechingly at the detective, which would probably work a lot better if he were a Soulmate Beagle of Enforcement. As it is, Sonny just ignores his gaze and sits down on a bench, his legs open in a wide vee.

“Awright so, how does this work? Is it like a Spidey sense, or, I dunno, do you know what they look like? Do you know their name?” Carisi scratches his head as he lists the possible ways Rafael might know who his mission is supposed to be.

Barba lifts his wings in a semblance of a shrug. He’s got as much idea as Carisi, which is to say none. He’ll just know when he knows. In the meantime he’s hungry and certain noodly detectives are preventing him from eating perfectly good pizza crusts. He paces back and forth in front of the bench a few times, pointedly ignoring the garbage bin and waiting for Carisi’s attention to be distracted, but the man is keeping both eyes on Barba, squinting like he knows exactly what he’s trying to do.

Carisi sighs. “Look, I’m not saying you have to eat bugs or whatever, but I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to eat human food in this form.”

Barba glares at him. Unlike the sad eyes, this is something he can do perfectly well in his current state of being, and Sonny wilts slightly. He looks around and his eyes brighten as he spots something on the other side of the playground.

“Tell you what, counsellor. Why don’t we plea down to human food that's at least fresh, so I don’t have to worry about you getting food poisoning?”

Barba hops up onto the bench and stretches his neck to see where Sonny is looking. There’s a soft-pretzel cart and he can’t smell it, but sense memory gives him the hint of salty dough and sharp yellow mustard and he can feel drool accumulating on his tongue. He does another little hop, pushing himself off the bench, and flaps awkwardly in the direction of the cart.

Carisi laughs and follows him. The only other customer is a young man, maybe sixteen, and Rafael feels a prickling sensation as his feathers start to ruffle in the nonexistent wind. He waddles closer to the boy and the sensation gets stronger.

He backs up, bumping into Carisi’s leg. He turns around and hoots indignantly. Even in goose form, Barba has to deal with the man’s noodle limbs tripping him up.

Ignoring Carisi’s questions about what he wants, Rafael weaves his way around the cart, pausing here and there to see if his feathers flutter again.

“Is your bird drunk?” The kid asks Sonny.

“Not my bird,” Sonny replies. “And I don’t think so. Does coffee make birds drunk?”

They both watch Barba with interest as he continues his weaving and then he stops, all of his feathers standing on edge.

She’s standing in the grass with a skateboard at her feet, attempting to do a basic kickflip. She looks to be about the same age as the boy, and Rafael is relieved. He didn’t want to be the weird bird chasing a literal toddler around, he’s seen enough of those videos on YouTube.

He gives the girl a wide berth, walking around and behind her. He spreads his wings out wide and brings them in with an arcing wave, practicing his gathering motion. He does it three times and then he takes a deep breath and honks as loudly as he can, throwing 25 years of courtroom-projecting experience into his voice. The girl jumps and whirls around, her skateboard in her hand like she’s going to swing it.

He puffs up his chest and waves his wings at her, urging her forward.

“Oh hell no!” The girl says, and she drops her board on the sidewalk and jumps on it, pushing one foot along the ground to build up speed.

Barba stomps the ground as he runs behind her, honking authoritatively at anyone in his way. He can’t lose her. The sight of a Soulmate Goose of Enforcement is enough that most of the people in the park are staying well clear of the path, phones out to capture the moment of contact.

She keeps looking behind her and swearing when she sees Barba has not given up. He’s still honking and flapping his wings and he looks past her to see he has successfully managed to herd her in the right direction. A few more feet and she’ll run right into the boy.

He jumps into the air and lands on the girl’s backpack. She shrieks and he clings on as she wobbles, trying not to lose her balance.

It happens in the seconds between moments, the skateboard shoots out from underneath her and she trips over her feet as she suddenly has to readjust to solid ground. Her arms shoot out for balance and the boy reaches out to catch her, dropping his uneaten pretzel on the grass.

Rafael lets go of the backpack and launches himself at the pretzel with a delighted hoot. He hears claps and looks up to see skateboard girl and pretzel boy holding each other, gazing into each other’s eyes with all the affection of lovestruck teenagers.

Job well done, he settles down in the grass with his bready reward and then growls as a long thin shadow falls over him. The shadow kneels in front of him.

“Hey, none of that.” Sonny chides him. “You did good there, but you’re going to be shifting back soon and you probably don’t wanna be in public when that happens.”

He’s right, and Rafael stands and flaps his wings, planning to fly home. His wings droop as he tries to hop into flight and he hoots sadly, looking at his wings like they’ve betrayed him. Which they have. Apparently human Barba needs to pump his arms more when he jogs, because his wings feel tired and he’s not sure he has the energy to get home under his own speed.

“Come on,” Sonny says, holding his arms out. “We can go back to my place until you shift back.”

He doesn’t see any other options so he follows Sonny out of the park towards the street. He’s still got most of the pretzel hanging out of his beak because damnit, he’s earned it.

The first taxi driver Carisi hails shakes his head when he sees Barba.

“No way man, I just had the interior detailed.” The driver protests as Barba hops up onto the bench seat and Carisi slides in after him.

Carisi flashes his badge. “Don’t worry, if he does anything you can bill the city.”

The driver shakes his head again but doesn’t push the issue and pulls out into traffic. Sitting in a moving vehicle is difficult with Rafael’s new lower centre of gravity and every time the car turns, he slides down to Carisi’s side.

He stops fighting it after the third careening turn and just lets himself sink down against the detective. He closes his eyes as the rocking of the car lulls him into a drifting state. He doesn’t sleep, but his eyes are closed and he doesn’t see Sonny looking down at him with a soft smile.

The smile widens as Rafael’s breathing evens out into soft whistling hoot-snores. The only reason Sonny is unable to capture it on video is because his phone is in the pocket Rafael is leaning against. When the car pulls up to his building, Sonny carefully tucks Rafael under his arm with the pretzel dangling off his fingers.

Rafael continues to sleep as Sonny carries him up the stairs to his apartment and sets him gently down on a sofa that’s seen better days. Rafael wakes up briefly when Sonny is draping an afghan over him and he looks around blearily.

“You’re in my living room,” Sonny tells him. “Your pretzel’s on the coffee table.”

Rafael gives a single disgruntled honk and then uses his beak to pull the afghan further around him until he is nearly buried in a nest of blanket.

Sonny sneaks a few photos of Rafael asleep, just the tips of his webbed feet and beak poking out from the blanket. He then walks into the kitchen to get a fresh pot of coffee brewing, because he knows Barba will need it. He doesn’t know how long the process takes, so he settles in at his kitchen table with a book of crossword puzzles.

When Barba comes to again, he flexes his fingers and toes and delights in the feeling of his human body. He spots a soft pretzel on a napkin on the coffee table and reaches an arm out from under the blanket to grab it, breaking pieces off and stuffing them in his mouth hungrily.

He hears a choked laugh and whips his head around to see Carisi standing there holding a steaming mug of coffee.

“F’r me?” He asks around a mouthful of pretzel, pointing hopefully at the coffee.

“Yeah, I thought you’d probably need it.” Carisi hands him the mug, handle out for him to grab.

He takes it happily and brings it to his lips, washing the pretzel down with huge swigs of sugared caffeine. Carisi smirks and sits on the sofa next to him, folding one impossibly long leg underneath himself.

“So, how d’you feel?” Carisi asks.

Rafael takes a moment to run an inventory over himself. “I feel good,” he says, and he’s surprised at how true it is. “Your couch is very comfortable.”

“You should try my bed.” Carisi smirks again.

Rafael looks appraisingly at him. He looks back, a glimmer of something – amusement, maybe – in his eyes.

He looks down at himself and plucks at the stiff cotton scrub top he woke up in. He sighs.

“If scientists ever figure out exactly how the metamorphoses happen, I’d be fascinated to know what metaphysical principal determined that we need to be wearing scrubs when we come back to ourselves.”

Carisi considers him, his head tilted like a golden retriever looking at a particularly intricate puzzle toy. Like the kind where if he solves it, he gets a treat. Rafael doesn’t know if he’s the toy or the treat in this metaphor. He also doesn’t know if that was actually a metaphor or a simile.

“You know,” Carisi says slowly, “I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that people wake up in whatever they were wearing when they went to bed. The scrubs only manifest if they were _au naturel_.” His Staten Island accent wraps around the French words and Rafael can feel his cheeks flushing at the implication.

“Congratulations, detective,” Rafael says snippily. “Now you know I sleep in the nude. Give yourself a Kewpie doll.”

“Sure,” Carisi agrees. “Don’t they come naked too?”

Rafael takes another large swig of coffee instead of responding. If he mumbles something into the drink about being naked and coming – well, no one can vouch for how audible it was.

When his mug is empty and his pretzel reduced to a tidy pile of crumbs he pushes the blanket off himself and stands up. He overbalances, forgetting how much taller he is when he’s not a goose. Carisi catches him with a hand on his hip, and they are standing close enough that Rafael can see the shimmering glints of silver in his hair, usually dulled by the amount of hair product the man uses.

His eyes drop to Carisi’s lips. They’re pink and slightly open and Rafael can see a drop of coffee in the corner of his mouth. He wonders if it would be weird if he licked it away. It probably would be. Maybe not if he was still a goose, though. He briefly misses being a goose.

“You okay?” Sonny asks, and Barba nods faintly.

“Uh huh.” He says, his gaze still on Sonny’s mouth.

Sonny drops his hand from Barba’s hip and the man sways for a moment and then sits back down heavily.

“Maybe not so uh huh?” Sonny asks.

“I’m fine,” He insists. “Just readjusting to having feet. And arms.” His eyes widen. “And a bladder. Washroom?”

Sonny points silently down the hall and Barba stands up again, pausing to make sure he won’t fall before leaving the room. He walks past Sonny and it takes a few seconds for Sonny to register the feeling but then he does and he blinks.

“Did you just _goose me_?!”

Barba winks at him and turns down the hall. When he doesn’t reappear a few minutes after Sonny hears the toilet flush, Sonny goes looking.

He finds Barba in his bedroom. In his bed.

“You’re right, Carisi.” Barba says to him. “Your bed is very comfortable.”

Sonny nods slowly. This moment is like a recurring dream of his, except for the whole preliminary bit where Barba was a goose.

Barba peers up at him and Sonny gets the impression of being looked at from overtop a pair of half-moon spectacles.

“Are you waiting for an engraved invitation to your own bed, detective?”

Sonny feels like maybe he missed an integral part of their conversation but decides not to question it. He gets into his bed and almost immediately there is a soft warm body pressed against his.

“This is nicer than in the cab,” Barba murmurs. He wraps an arm tightly around Sonny’s torso. “Couldn’t do that in the cab.”

Within minutes, Barba is lightly snoring. Sonny’s phone pocket is accessible this time, and he manages to sneak a two-minute video of the man snuffling against Sonny’s midsection.

His own morning hasn’t been nearly as exhausting as the ADA’s, but his bed really is very comfortable and so is the feel of the man asleep against him. He tells himself he’ll just close his eyes for a few minutes, but he won’t be angry if he wakes up an hour from now in the same position.

It feels right, the two of them in bed together. Sonny looks down at the top of Rafael’s head and wonders if maybe the Soulmate Goose of Enforcement is responsible for two matches today.

**Author's Note:**

> Along with my 100th fic overall, this is my 45th Barisi. Will my 50th be equally absurd? You betcha.


End file.
